aka: RC
The active area of memory that OpenGL writes information derived from the Model View, Projection View and Texture matrices, that is displayed on screen. Similar to the Device Context (DC) used by Windows when drawing graphics with GDI.

Developed by Criterion Software Limited in 1993, RenderWare (RW) is a 3D "middleware" applications programming interface (API) graphics rendering engine that has become more popular since version 3 and the Playstation 2 video game console where it has been used in various games (most notably Grand Theft Auto 3), many of which have been ported to the PC.

Red, Green, Blue. The 3 primary colors that make up all other colors by being displayed at different intensities next to each other. In a monitor this is referred to as a triad, which equals one pixel.

Run Length Encoding. A type of compression that reduces file sizes by shortening sequential "runs" of color of the same amount.

For example, 20 pixels of red horizontally could be abbrieviated to a number equalling a row 20, followed by the color of red. Then when the image is decoded it reads that there are 20 pixels of the following color and draws them.

A scene graph is a tree where the nodes are objects in a scene arranged in some sort of hirearchy. These nodes may be actual physical objects, or simply 'abstract' objects. For example a transformation node would apply some form of transformation to any 3D objects that are below the transformation node in the scene graph. A scene graph can be used for many things, depending on the way you order the nodes in the graph. For example you could have an octree containing object to be rendered in a scene, this would be a limited form of scene graph. You could have a scene graph that contains an octree as well as an alternative way or organising the same data, e.g. by render state. So you could use your scene graph for culling unseen objects as well as ordering objects to be rendered by render state.

An assembly-like program which replaces part of the rendering pipeline with custom code. Shaders that affect vertices (vertex shaders) replace the normal transformation and lighting stage of the pipeline, while shaders that affect pixels (pixel shaders), work at the rasterization stage, affecting how the final screen color is determined. Shaders are supported in DirectX 8 and later, and in OpenGL through extensions (and as part of the proposed OpenGL 2.0 standard).

Animation that is based on a model having a skeleton instead of being drawn as a series of different models (same model saved in different positions, key-frame animation). Skeletons are set up with joints or bones to determine how the unit will animate. Hierarchical Skeletons and SkinningSkeletal Deformation Example